Joplin

I've come to the media fast point AGAIN this spring. For the third time: tsunami, river flooding, and now tornado. Because Lali is right. Our human brains have not caught up evolution-wise with instant news at our fingertips. I think my brain is still in the "my neighbor met a man who traveled up to our village and told of a devastating tornado that hit his village 6 weeks ago and he needs help" stage.

Joplin is in my state, a city I drive through on the way to Texas. It is nowhere near me and I know no one from there. Most other Missouri cities of any substantial size I would know folks in--Rolla, Columbia, Kansas City, Cape Girardeau, etc.--but not Joplin. It's at the corner where Missouri meets Oklahoma and Kansas. A place to fill up the tank before you get on the Oklahoma turnpike. I just want to flag it that way. I'm not trying to take on any grief here that doesn't belong to me. It is more like the tsunami than the flood, for me. The flood was palpable. I know those places, those roads, those people. I don't know Joplin.

But still, those pictures. That meteorologist from the Weather Channel breaking down on camera. The terrifying video (well, audio) of the people riding out the storm in a walk-in cooler in a gas station convenience store. 122 dead thus far. The reports of the number of missing are staggering numbers. Even if the largest number reported--1500--turns out to be two or three times as big as the real number, they are still looking at an enormous number of folks from a town of 50,000.

And then the story of the 16 month old who was ripped out of his mother's arms. Front page of our paper today.

That reminded me of a story my grandmother Edith told about a tornado.

The story goes that she was a small girl, the youngest of 8, and she, her mother, and a few brothers were heading home to their farm out near Vichy, Missouri (in Maries County, not far from where we spend so much time out at Rock Eddy). The spring storms were coming up and they found themselves looking up at a funnel cloud moving their way, quickly. So Edith's mother Mazie jumped into one ditch, Edith into the next with brothers spread around in both. As the winds picked up, Edith was terrified and started climbing over the little hill to get into the ditch with her mother. She didn't make it over the hill, though, since the tornado went right over them. Her brothers held onto her ankle to keep her from being blown away.

It seems so impossible but hearing this family's terrible loss makes it seem less of a tall tale after all. Especially considering that Edith wasn't caught an EF-5 in the early '20s. Maybe John or Archie could have held onto her ankle while it passed over them.

We have a healthy respect for them here. Now more than ever.